First amendment freedoms

On March 3, 2006 Mathew Snyder a marine deployed in Iraq died in a non combat vehicle accident. On March 10, 2006 the Funeral of Mathew Snyder took place. While the funeral was happening Fred phelps and the Westboro Baptist church (WBC) decided to picket the Funeral. While Picketing took place they said things to "America is doomed", "Fag Troops", "Semper Fi fags", "God hates you", "Your going to hell", and "Thank god for dead soldiers".


Albert Snyder, the father of  Mathew Snyder took offense and felt that Phelps violated The Snyder's privacy. Albert Snyder said "They turned this funeral into a media circus and wanted to hurt my family. They wanted their message to be heard and they didn't care who they stepped over. My son should have been buried in dignity not with a bunch of clowns outside." Albert Snyder sued Fred Phelps and his daughters Rebecca Phelps-davis, and Shirley Phelps-Roper. He sued Them for defamation, intrusion upon seclusion, publicity given to private life, intentional infliction of emotional distress,and civil conspiracy.


Fred phelps felt that his actions were not wrong at all because all of their actions took place on a public sidewalk and they were only expressing their opinion. Albert Snyder's argument was that Fred Phelps caused emotional distress and the memory of his son will always be associated to the acts of Phelps. Albert Snyder thought that Phelps had no place at the funeral.


Initially The jury found for Albert Snyder and he was awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages, $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy, and $2 million for causing emotional distress. Later an appeal was filed and the fourth circuit ruled that the lower court had erred by instructing the jury to decide a question of law rather than fact (specifically, whether or not the speech in question was protected by the first ammendment.)  Albert Snyder had to $16,510 in court costs.


My opinion to this verdict is that it is absurd, Personally I think that Fred Phelps Caused so Much pain toward the Snyder Family. Phelps also caused unwanted attention towards the funeral. I think that Fred Phelps should have had to pay the $16,510 in court cost plus an amount towards Albert Snyder.


Source for the case:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyder_v._Phelps

Slander and libel

The television reporter is definitely guilty of defamation of character. Just because the witness could not describe the details of the scene it gave the reporter no right to say that the witness was intoxicated. The reporter should have just stated that the witness could not provided any details, and then dismissed the witness properly. The proper outcome to this case should be a payout from the news station to the witness they wrongly described.

My Code Of Ethics.

1. Do not change the details of the story to make it better.
2. Be fair and respectful to anyone included in the story.
3. Do not offer any gifts to get a story from someone.
4. Provide all sources the information comes from.
5. Be clear and accurate.

I think that these rules would be good because they all would ensure that the articles would have the truth in them and that they are not just useless stories for attention.

Ethical?

Being ethical means that you do what is morally right. When it comes to doing what is ethically right it isnt always easy. Sometimes a person can be faced with a choice that may be wrong to some extent but actually it is morally right.

Ethics in Journalism recommends journalist to respect the presumption of innocence. most Journalism code of ethics include the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity,  impartiality, fairness, and public accountability. The journalist code of ethics is designed to assist journalist in dealing with ethical dilemmas.

Television and Broadcast

The news program that I watched was sports center. Sports center is a daily sports news show, it consist of Highlight from sporting events, commentaries, previews, and feature stories. The broadcast that I watched commentated on a NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and The Philadelphia Eagles.

I thought that the commentary on the game was very professional, i thought that they did a good job of staying  unbiased and stating the facts. The commentators of the game gave both team an fair opinion of what they did and did not do. They stated that the Eagles simply outplayed the Cowboys. This was true, it wasn't the fact that the cowboys played badly it was just that the eagles did their homework and came and played harder.

News media is media that has a main objective to deliver news to the public. News media include internet, radio,  television, and newspaper. Each element has its own unique characteristics that make it popular to people. they are also similar in some ways too.

Television news consist of journalist and reporters gathering information and presenting it on a news show. One popular way Television news stations gather information is by interviewing witnesses of the news they are reporting. The news stations also use news clips captured by by their cameras and sometimes captured by helicopters.

Two other forms of media are newspaper and internet. Newspaper include sections such as sports, opinion pages, news reports or analysis, and entertainment guides. Internet news can come in forms of blogs, news stations have websites and post news that way, On the internet you can also find some video footage of news media.


These forms of media are all similar because they all find a way to get out important information to people. When people need to hear Information these forms of media are all the first places they look. The difference between these forms of media in my opinion is what seperates them. One difference is the popularity and credibility. The internet is most popular form because of its accessibility but it sometimes on particular sites mostly blogs credibility is lacking and it sometimes tells false information. The internet is also on different because it posses basically all  of the other forms within it. On the internet you can find some part of television you can find parts of news paper, and you can also find radio.

Response to "Illusion of pain" by Joe Posnanski

Mr Joe Posnanski I liked the way you analogized boxing with another sport like football to show how situations can be similar. One thing i didn't like about that though was more than half of the article was about football. I can understand if it was meant to compare two sports, but it wasn't.I also how didn't like how you criticized what people wore to boxing matches obviously its common and it shouldn't be an issue. I think that you should have spoken more about the boxing match that took place since your first phrase in the article was "This will be about boxing,".

When you actually began to talk about the boxing match between Floyd Mayweather, and Victor Ortiz you stated that Mayweather outclassed Ortiz the first three rounds. I think that you should have explained what Mayweather did to outclass him. Also Your article was very one sided and you didn't give Mayweather the credit he deserved for the win. This article would have been much better if it was more about the boxing match and less bias about how Mayweather's win came.